August 22, 2023 • 47 mins
How do we actually make the most of our 20s? Career anxiety, feeling stuck, taking risks and managing our money (do we spend or save) are all big concerns we have in this period. So how do we manage these dilemmas and choices to create our dream life in our 20s, and what does that dream life even look like? In part one of our mini series, we examine the major decisions we make during this decade around our future and how we can approach them to get the best outcome. We discuss the importance of taking risks, moving to a new city, quitting your terrible job and trying as many things as possible. We also talk money, dymystifying some of the stigma around how people in their 20s are actually spending their money and why you should be spending on experiences rather than temporary things. Listen now! Part two out Friday!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is great to have
you here back for another episode today. I also want
to formally welcome you to this week's little mini series
where I'm going to be focusing on how to create
your dream life in your twenties. So my kind of
(00:48):
idea behind this segment why I thought that it was
important to talk about today, perhaps something that I hadn't
spoken about before, is that there is so much evidence, advice, pology,
even my personal observations that don't always make it into
one episode altogether. I feel like I have a lot
of different episodes for unique conundrums and unique experiences. But
(01:12):
what I really wanted to do was combine that all
into two episodes where we look at all the different
dimensions of our twenties that I think we experience the
greatest sense of worry and confusion, things like our careers,
our finances, love, friendships, the future and our personal growth,
(01:33):
and really provide a bit of a blueprint or a
guide for what is the best practice, what is the
best thing to do during this decade around these different
ideas and experiences that is not only going to allow
us to really enjoy the freedom of this time, but
also set us up for the future. I think this
(01:55):
decade is so incredibly romanticized, and the stakes feel so
high to kind of get everything right and to set
ourselves up for success whilst also not really missing out
on some of those crucial, fun, care free times, and
I think we all deserved a bit of a holistic
bird's eye view of exactly what kind of balance to
(02:18):
strike and also some reassurance that you are not behind,
there is no need to rush, there is still time,
and also what the future may have in store how
to approach that daunting, sometimes overwhelming confusion with excitement rather
than fear. So this is Part one of the Creating
(02:40):
Your Dream Life mini series where we are going to
cover tips and theories around achieving fulfillment, direction and growth
in our careers and our financial lives. And part two
we're going to cover relationships, friendships, love as well as
our physical and our emotional and crucially our spiritual well being.
(03:04):
So this episode, I really want to get into a
decode all of the kind of mysteries and confusions around
making career and financial choices in your twenties that feel
right and feel satisfying, but also allow us to really
build this really wonderful future that we want without having
the regret and the fear of the what ifs. A
(03:27):
question I get all the time, and that I think,
in fact, I ask myself a lot, is how do
I know that the decisions I'm making right now are
not the same decisions that I'm going to regret in
five or ten years. Because this is our first decade
of adulthood, we often don't have the hindsight to comprehend
(03:49):
just how much our lives can and will change in
the next five to ten years, and they may pan
out in ways that we don't expect. So because we
are all very new to this day and new to
this experience, we feel very boxed in by, I would say,
a series of choices that have been socially imposed on us,
particularly three or four options in particular, do you work,
(04:13):
do you travel? Do you pursue further education or do
you settle down?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think that what comes from that is this series
of what if questions, the series of kind of pick
me or make a choice situation.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So do I go to.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
UNI and pursue professional success of being you know, a lawyer,
a doctor, an architect? Or do I go traveling? Do
I spend the next ten years climbing the corporate ladder?
Or do I pursue my passions and my pipe dreams.
Sometimes it feels like every choice we make closes more
doors than it opens. If I'm this type of person,
(04:53):
the type that is eager for financial independence and professional success,
then I have to say goodbye to this other potential
version of myself, that really free spirited traveler with endless
time but also very little money. And I wish that
I could be every possible version of myself. I wish
that I didn't have to choose. It's something that I
(05:14):
hear constantly, and I guess the question that comes from
that is why can't we kind of have it all?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Why can't we be it all?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I think a big misconception we face during this decade
is that the choices we are making now will be
our final answer. Part of that is this major contradiction
inherent in our twenties that can make things so confusing
but also wonderful. You know, in one year, we are
told that this is the decade of opportunity, where we
(05:43):
are kind of given a few years of free passes
to really take our time and explore, and then in
the other years this little voice telling us that we
are falling behind, that we should have figured it out
by now, that this is where our life foundation is
a established. I talk about this concept quite a bit
on the show, but I think our twenties are a
(06:05):
continuous example of what we call the paradox of choice.
So the paradox of choice is this theory that suggests
when we have an abundance of options, actually what that
requires is more effort. And when we have more options,
we feel less satisfied with our choices compared to when
(06:25):
we have fewer. And when we think about the landscape
of our twenties, something that we are is very much
spoilt for choice, and we might think that that is
more liberating. We might think that that gives us more freedom,
But what a lot of these psychologists are saying is
really that choice actually paralyzes us because we don't know
(06:45):
how to weigh up all of the pros and cons
the costs and benefits of these decisions. So we are
a generation facing the curse of too much choice, and
maybe that is what's contributing to high levels of anxiety
around not making the most of our formative years or
worse yet, I think this fear of making a choice
(07:09):
and it being the wrong one. Something we really need
to acknowledge before we start this episode is that this
decade is not always going to be glamorous and romantic.
I think we constantly think that we should be further along,
that we should have this career of our dreams, or
even an idea of what that dream should be by
(07:30):
a certain age. But when you talk to more and
more people about this, you kind of realize that everyone
is just as confused as the next. And we learn
a lot of what we think our lives should be
like from very unrealistic I would say, narrow hues, from
very highly idealized depictions of what this decade should be
(07:54):
from movies from cinema, and unfortunately a lot of them
are false. So there's two things that I've come to realize.
Number One, we need to throw out any kind of
thinking or prediction of what you think your life should
look like. The vision you have for your future right
now is going to change a million times, and where
(08:16):
you think you'll end up is probably not going to
be where you actually end up.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I would say the.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Chances are highly unlikely. You know, I finished high school
thinking I was going to work in politics. Then I
graduated union, I was a management consultant, and now three
years later, you know, I make a psychology podcast full time.
That wasn't what I had in mind. That was a
completely different idea to what I had even twelve months ago.
(08:43):
But I think it's even better because I let life
surprise me and I didn't tie myself down to a
particular idea of who I needed to be. I let
myself change. I let myself make mistakes, because I think
that's firmly what I think this decade is for. That
is my underlying philosophy throughout this whole idea of creating
your dream life. Allow yourself to make mistakes, allow yourself
(09:06):
to accept change.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I think.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Secondly, no decision or experience is ever a waste of
your time, And you also have the agency to change
your reality.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
At any point.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
It's really never too late to make a life altering decision.
You can be fifty and decide to go back to school.
You can be thirty five and quit your job. You
can be eighty before you really, you know, find your passion,
you start your first book, you meet the love of
your life. You're not a passive actor or a sidekick
in your own life. That's something we really need to remember.
(09:41):
You are the main character. So what's kind of stopping
you from trying on different versions of yourself and seeing
which one fits? You know, what's stopping you from deciding
that one day you know the corporate life isn't for
you, you're quitting your job, or maybe you're doing the reverse.
You can give a million reasons why you cannot do that,
(10:02):
But I think when your happiness is the number one priority,
especially during this decade where I think we're allowed to
be a lot more selfish than other decades, when you're
kind of on this journey of creating your dream life,
happiness is really the core factor in your decision making.
So in this episode, Part one of this episode, we
(10:23):
are going to break down my ten key tips to
getting the most out of your career, your finances, and
your time in your twenties to create your dream life,
set yourself up for success, but also really enjoy this
sacred period of your life. So, without further ado, let's
get into it. The big dilemma I think that we
(10:50):
need to overcome first and foremost when we're working towards
this idea of creating our dream life, is actually understanding.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
What that looks like.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Now, that's a highly individual question, depending on factors like
our values, family, expectations, culture, even the books and movies
that we've been exposed to. That conceptualization is going to
look really different for everyone. You know, For some people,
our twenties are about complete freedom and minimal responsibility, and
(11:21):
for others they're focused on settling down or pursuing love
or your soulmate. In fact, I really think that on
this whole planet, you could never find two people who
are perfectly aligned on what they want from this decade,
because there isn't one correct answer. I think where we
get in trouble is when we compare our idea of
(11:42):
happiness and success as well to someone else's and we
really begin to doubt whether our aspirations are actually good
enough or whether someone else has it more figured out
than us. That right there, I think is a one
way ticket to very deep emotional, spiritual, mental desaturer faction,
because someone else's ambition and motivation for pursuing a certain
(12:06):
path is not going to be aligned with yours. And
I think focusing on someone else's plan, focusing on someone
else's idea of fulfillment, someone else's success, just really detracts
from your own enjoyment of your life because you're constantly
holding up a mirror to someone else's. As the saying goes,
you know, energy flows where attention goes, and if there's
(12:29):
one thing that you need to create your dream life
during this decade, it is to direct all of your
energy into what is going to make you happy, both
in the moment and in the future. So our first
exercise is to determine what kind of decade you want
your twenties to be, noting that this can and I
(12:50):
think definitely will change, and you should really be testing
this idea regularly. But at every stage when you find
yourself perhaps at a crossroads or feeling really stuck, which
we know is a super common experience, what you need
to ask yourself is a what makes you happy b
what makes you fulfilled? Because those are different things, and
(13:12):
see what conditions are necessary to fulfill those two factors.
I say that third factor of what conditions are necessary
as the last one, because I think that this should
enable those first two factors. It's also something that is
most flexible and it shouldn't be a condition or a
factor that limits what you're looking for in your life
(13:35):
or when we start making a plan for the future,
especially during this decade, I think we often set out
to make a bit of a checklist, one that feels
very constrictive and linear. You know, do X to achieve Y, PASCO,
collect certain experiences, achieve certain milestones, and happiness is kind
of guaranteed. And when we put ourselves into a category
(13:59):
where we feel like we need to meet certain conditions
to do something, we also feel that we can't do
everything and that we're closing ourselves off to other possibilities,
which actually creates a lot of paralysis because if we
are feeling like we're forced to make a decision, if
we're feeling like we have to give up opportunities in
(14:20):
order to pursue something in particular, that's going to really
decrease our motivation and our sense of satisfaction with that
when you're with that choice. And I think what's more
accurate is that you can't do everything.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
At once, but you can do everything.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Ten years is a really, really long time, and I
think to put that into perspective, think about everything that
has happened to you since you were ten, or since
you were twelve or fifteen, or how many different chapters
you've lived through since that age you were ten years ago,
how much your ideas about the future changed in that time.
(14:57):
I think in order to confront a lot of that
anxiety about wasting our formative years, we need to look
at our twenties as a series of seasons. So twenty
to twenty two is season one. Maybe we focus on UNI,
we focus on figuring things out. Twenty three to twenty
five season two, we focus on giving our passions, our all,
(15:17):
you know, really focusing on something that is perhaps not
conventional or accepted, but something that makes us happy. Twenty
six to twenty eight, we can travel if we want.
That's another option. Twenty nine to thirty to thirty one,
we can really focus on some level of professional or
career development and viewing it as a series of chapters
(15:38):
rather than just one clump of ten years where you
have to do everything possible. I think that makes us
feel like we can fit.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It all in.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Instead of creating a timeline or a checklist, a very
constrictive way of looking at your life, I want us
to utilize the ideas around visualization to create a more
realistic depiction of what our future might look like, but
also one that can be flexible. Instead of thinking, this
(16:08):
is what I want to achieve by twenty five or
twenty eight or thirty, whatever age you have in mind,
I want you to instead imagine a random day one
year from now and picture the following things.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Where are you living and in.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Detail, what does your space look like? Where did you
wake up this morning? What's your morning routine? Maybe you
went and saw some friends for lunch. Who are they?
Who are these friends? What do they do? How are
you spending your afternoon? Are you working in a cafe?
Are you working at you know, the job you've always
wanted or taking a train somewhere amazing. Who are you texting?
(16:45):
Who are you talking to? Who are you fantasizing about?
What are the plans that you're working towards what are
you eating for dinner? And then project that same visualization
again for the version of you in five years. Think
about that moment, what is making you happy, what is
your routine looking like, what does the world around you
(17:07):
look like? And what small things from that do you
need to change to make that feeling a reality. The
thing is, I think deep down we already know what
kind of future we want, or at least we know
at least one version of that. The only doubt I
think we have intrinsically is our fear that we may
(17:27):
not achieve it. But then when we picture our future
and ourselves in it, when we use that very powerful
tool of visualization, that's not only a really powerful motivator,
but it's also incredibly affirming, and it makes us look
for a practical pathway to achieving a certain feeling rather
than a quantifiable set of milestones. Now that we have
(17:52):
that dream in mind, I really want to discuss how
we can form our life around that dream, or around
the feeling that we're looking to achieve. So this is
where I really want to discuss my firstly, five key
tips for pushing yourself forward and making the most out
of your career decisions during this decade. I think the
secret to creating your dream life in your twenties is
(18:14):
a combination of both future planning and risk taking, striking
that balance. So firstly, depending on what season you're in,
whether you have a plan or not, you really need
to try as many new things as you can, even
when they feel scary. There's this beautiful quote that I
reflect on a lot. The unlived life is not worth examining.
(18:37):
I think too many of us believe that our twenties
are for thinking about what we want to do and
imagining our future, but actually not doing much doing. That's
not true. I think our twenties are for collecting the
experiences and the stories that will be the bedrock for
our future, rather than kind of falling into what we
(18:57):
call the cycle of an action regret. So in action regret.
We've spoken about this before, but researchers have shown that
doing something, even if it's the wrong thing, taking risks
even if they don't work out, is much less likely
to leave you with regret than doing nothing at all.
I think additionally, our twenties are when we are most
(19:19):
receptive to new experiences and new interests, whilst our our
brains are still developing, so it really is the best
time to expose ourselves to novelty and newness and things
that might challenge our thinking, rather than feeling like we're
stuck as the same version as we were when we
were eighteen or nineteen years old. The thing is, you
haven't really been an adult for all too long, so
(19:41):
it's unlikely that you really know what you like, what
makes you happy. You really haven't had that exposure to
what's out there, and sadly, I think you can't really
figure out what is going to leave you feeling fulfilled
unless you give things a really solid go. And like
I said before, let life truly surprise you. I had
this friend who spent like her whole life thinking that
(20:05):
she was going to be a doctor. She had five
months left of medical school, and someone got her a
random pottery course for her birthday, and within two weeks
she'd quit medical school and was focusing on being an
artist full time. And I know that sounds really drastic,
but this is the time for you to do that,
because you can't really hurt anyone by deciding to make
(20:25):
yourself happier in those moments, and by deciding to pursue
something that might be different. If you are in a
moment of stagnation, you've been doing the same thing for
some time, it's time to switch it up, because I
think you don't want to blink and realize that the
things you did at twenty two are the same stories
you're telling at twenty eight because you haven't given yourself
(20:46):
the space to be uncomfortable and make new experiences. This
really leads me to tip to take as many risks
as possible, even if they're not conventional, because you have
no idea how they might pay off. One thing in
particular I think everyone should be doing in their twenties
is to move to a new city. Pushing yourself into
(21:08):
a new environment is such a catalyst for self growth
and self awareness. Let this be your motivation if you
have been thinking about it, learning to live on your own,
support yourself, and create new connections beyond what you're comfortable in.
For me, that has been such a profound contributor to
(21:30):
my identity, a huge hallmark of my twenties, and I
think my sense of independence, my confidence, even you know,
my overall enjoyment in life has just blossomed, expanded, grown
a hundred times. I can't even fathom how many things
I would have missed out on if I hadn't left
(21:50):
home at seventeen and then again moved to Sydney at
twenty two. It really scares me to think about that,
all these beautiful experiences that I was rewarded with for
taking that even when it felt scary. I just can't
imagine how empty I would feel if I hadn't done that,
and how haunted I would be by the possibility. I
always say this, but I think the easiest thing you
(22:12):
can do is what is most convenient, and sadly, I
think that's normally the path most people take, one of
comfort and convenience where we really have You know, we
never give ourselves a reason to challenge whether our lives
could be better, because we are too scared that we
might make them worse. There's two things I want to
say about that. Firstly, there is really only so much
(22:34):
screwing up that you can do in your twenties, and
there are only a very select few amount of decisions
that are going to ruin your life. Everything is temporary, firstly,
but also everything can be reversed, except for the decisions
that you didn't make. I'm going to say that one
more time. Everything can be reversed except for the decisions
(22:55):
that you didn't make.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
And I'm not.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Asking you to do something fraudulent or d but just
to do things you are scared to do, because I
think living with that existential potential and question of the
what if is going to be a lot more emotionally
painful in the long term than that experience of momentary fear. Secondly,
there's this idea in psychology around the distinction between bounded
(23:19):
and unbounded risk that just kind of furthers the argument
that you can take chances and still pursue those same
goals and still feel secure. Bounded risks are risks that
have limited downside, but unbounded unlimited upside. So these kinds
of risks they might cost you upfront, they might involve
(23:40):
an investment in time or money or resources, but there
is no ceiling, there is no limit to the potential
upsides and reward. So starting a podcast, for example, a
side hustle, a YouTube channel, choosing to go back to
UNI for something you're passionate about, those are all examples
of bounded risks. You invest sometime in content creation or study,
(24:06):
some money in equipment or a membership, but it's not
going to cost you your life, your friendships, your career,
your financial security. It's just going to enhance the features
that are already there. And you know, if it doesn't
take off, if your podcast isn't successful, you have a
bounded loss. You can't lose more than what you invested in,
you know, But if it grows viral, or you find
(24:27):
a highly engaged audience, or you discover this really niche
passion and a demand for your skills, there is no
limit to how far that can go. I'm going to
give you the example I know best, which is in
terms of this show and this podcast that you're listening
to right now. When I started it, yeah there was
potential to be embarrassed, but really the worst that could
(24:48):
have happened was that no one listened. And guess what
if I hadn't started the podcast, no one would be
listening anyways. But theoretically, when you choose something like a
bounded risk, like starting a YouTube channel or a podcast
or a TikTok something like that, theoretically you can reach
anyone with an Internet connection. There is limited cost. And
(25:09):
then also unlimited payoff. You know this is my job now,
that's so crazy to me. This is my calling and
the why is so clear to me. But if I'd
been too scared or uncomfortable to take that risk, none
of that would have happened. So maybe I'm a success story.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Maybe I'm not.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
But you really have no idea what the world will
reward you with when you decide to do things that
most people feel too afraid to do, and you know
it's your twenties. At the end of the day, mistakes
just make for excellent stories, and some people may see
a downside in that, but I think good stories just
make you a more fascinating, multi dimensional human. So why
(25:51):
not do it? And one of the best risks I
think you can take? And also my third tip is
to quit the job you hate. I've spoken about this before,
and to be honest, people weren't too big of a
fan of it. But I really want to lay out
my evidence and reasoning for this if anyone out there
needs convincing. This is not the decade for you to
(26:13):
stay anywhere do anything you don't love.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Out of an obligation.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
You have years of that, years to do that, years
to put yourself through the responsibility of needing to keep
a job. I don't think now is that time when
we're talking about creating our dream life. If you are
someone who is working full time, one third of that
life you are creating will be at work. When we
look at our life in its totality, that is thirty
(26:39):
percent of our time, ninety thousand hours, ninety thousand hours
of your life. I can't even begin to contemplate how
large that number is. Imagine being in the biggest stadium
you've ever been in, and imagine talking to every single
person in that stadium for an hour, row by row,
section by section, seat by seat. That would take an
(27:00):
incredibly long time. And that is the time that you're
investing into a job that you might not love, that
you might not like, that leaves you overworked, miserable, bored, unfulfilled.
And so can you really give yourself a reason other
than money and stability why you should stay And when
you create a hierarchy of what's important to you, does
(27:22):
money really sit above your well being or your happiness
and your joy in life. I'm guessing probably not. And
it goes back to that first item. You need to
try as many new things as you can, because there
could be a job out there for you that you
absolutely adore, that you you know, leaves you feeling so
happy and fulfilled and meaningful. So why don't you deserve
(27:46):
to be there? This is really your only life, and
work is a part of that. It's a part of
that reality. So in ten twenty years, are you going
to be proud of yourself if you stayed somewhere you
weren't happy just because it was easier than the effort
it would take to do something that you loved more.
Quit the job. Trust me, I did it. You have
(28:07):
time to be a corporate drone, you have time to
sell your soul to a boss. But I don't think
that your twenties are that time. That advice might sound
quite militant and intense, maybe a bit Marxist, which I get,
I understand, but I also want to say, if you
love your job, that is absolutely something that you should
hold onto. You are very lucky and I think that
(28:29):
that is a real blessing. Congratulations. But this advice is
for if you have any doubts that your current career
is not bringing you fulfillment. I do think that that
lack of fulfillment. That dissatisfaction is only solidified over time,
so to give you that edge. This really relates to
my next tip, and to be able to transfer to
(28:50):
new jobs, new beginnings, but also to give you the
freedom to transition perhaps between work and time exploring and
trying other things. My fourth tip is to develop a
specific skill, something that is very unique, as almost an
insurance for your future. So things like audio editing, things
(29:10):
like being a nurse, things like copywriting, some kind of coding,
a unique skill, a unique thing that you can put
on your resume that is evergreen, that is always going
to have some kind of commodification. So why is this
valuable and why is it on this list? I think
this is valuable because it gives you the security to
(29:30):
be able to make decisions from a place of longing
and from your heart rather than practicality, knowing that you
have something to fall back onto, whilst also expanding the
avenues and dimensions of your life beyond your career. Whatever
you choose to do that is totally up to you.
But I also think that I cannot sit here and
give advice about creating a beautiful future if we're not
(29:52):
also thinking about what that foundation might look like, and
some of the practicalities and contextual factors around needing money
to live and needing money to explore, and needing money
to take time off work. So I think that made five.
But I'm going to give one extra, and that is
to start writing down your goals and setting up five
(30:13):
achievable goals per year. So one professional goal, one personal goal,
one financial goal, one health goal, and finally what I
call a soulful goal, So that is a goal that
feeds you mentally, psychologically, emotionally. That may not look like
something we would set as a goal from the outside.
(30:34):
It might not look important to others, but it's important
for ourselves and for keeping in touch with our authenticity
and our sense of wonder. Adulthood. If we take it
too seriously, sometimes can suck a lot of the fun
out of our twenties. You know, remember what it was
like when you played like a bunch of instruments and
you played sport with your friends and you were like
building a sticker collection, or you were like making little
(30:57):
songs on your keyboard. That is still important in our twenties.
So I think focusing on something that elevates the small
pleasures and keeps you centered on enjoying life is really important,
you know, maybe pursuing a sport or a yoga course,
or making time to make art, asking yourself like I
want to make a couple of art pieces a year,
(31:18):
and I'm not going to give them twenty one. I'm
just going to keep them to myself. I want to
make sure that I plan at least one beach trip,
or I do a girls trip or a trip on
my own, something that is going to feed your soul
that you prioritize in your life. That is an important
part of the goals that you're setting for the future.
I think those five goals, those five categories give your
(31:41):
life a sense of structure so that you're not kind
of sucked into a Peter Pan complex wanting to be
aimless and young forever. But it also keeps the balance
balance being the keyword of this episode, between focus and freedom. Importantly,
we also have to recognize that these goals they may
and most likely will change, and also you don't need
(32:03):
to achieve them.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
In the next two days or the next two weeks.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
One of the biggest mistakes I think we make in
our twenties is feeling like everything is on an accelerated timeline,
such that the time between an idea and its realization
needs to be as quick as possible. Maturing is really
coming to terms with the fact that good things take
time and adjustment, and plans made in silence, with consistency
(32:31):
and slow, steady action are a lot more structurally sound
than kind of these fleeting desires that we throw everything into.
And I'm not saying don't do those things, but I
think have some idea in mind of where you might
want to be in ten years. I really get that
tendency to rush and feel pressure to be successful and
(32:52):
exceptional at a young age, especially with so much societal
pressure and the idealization of the wonder kin for young success.
But really slow down and take this moment for what
it is. You're never going to get this time back.
That's something I hear time and time again from mentors
or people who are older than me. Plans will take time.
(33:13):
You don't need to rush and get them done right now.
You are completely okay to have your small micro goals
that give you a sense of motivation and give you
a sense of that visualization tactic we were talking about before.
You know, if your goal is to do something huge,
How can you prepare for that over time in a
way that is sustainable, focusing on the little steps you
(33:36):
take and tying them back to the big but also
giving yourself freedom around that to go on trips, to
do things that really spark joy and feel exciting and
feel like the experiences we should be having in our twenties.
I think we've had enough career advice and conversations on
careers so far in this episode, So what I want
(33:57):
to move on to talking about next is finances and money.
Not something we talk about on the show a lot,
but really important. Nonetheless, something extremely valuable to discuss when
we are contemplating this idea of our dream life and
how to set ourselves up for success in our twenties.
So all of that and more after this shortbreak. Money
(34:24):
in our twenties is something that we do not discuss
a lot. I think because our positions on kind of
the well scale between our friends, our colleagues, and then
people like our parents is so nuanced and diverse that
it feels awkward to speak on. You know, we have
friends who are still at UNI, some of.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Them are working.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
We don't really want to put it out there that
we might have less money than they might have more.
There's also this level of discomfort and shame and taboo
around money, which I actually think is not doing us
any favors. It's not empowering to make informed decisions, like
how do I spend my money in my twenties? Is
(35:04):
everyone saving money? Does everyone have money for a house?
Or is everyone as frivolous as me? Is everyone prioritizing experiences.
It's really hard to know because I think not only
do people not talk about it in our personal lives,
but there are very very few discussions about it in
things like our education system or even online in the media.
(35:26):
So let's crack that open today. Let's really examine maybe
how you should be spending your money in your twenties.
I'm going to make a really big caveat here. You
should be spending your money how you want to spend it.
I think financial responsibility and literacy is something that we
all claim in our own time. And I also think
this is just my opinion and my advice for how
(35:49):
I choose to spend my money and how I'm trying
to set myself up for a success. I also think
this is a psychology podcast, and we cannot discuss our
opinions and perspectives and feelings towards money without thinking about
where that came from. I think whilst we should save
when and where we can when possible, we also need
(36:09):
to reframe money as a resource and a tool rather
than as a source of joy. But some of us
have had different childhood perspectives on that, and different influential
experiences around money that have influenced how we treat it
in our twenties. For example, you know, if you never
really had much, money is really synonymous to you with security,
(36:31):
so you might hang on to it and feel a
lot worse or a lot more negative around spending money
on things that might bring you joy, or you might
go the opposite way.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
If you've never had much.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Money, you might now not really know how to manage
this as a resource and use it to pursue luxury
and to give you the things that you never had.
I also think there are a lot of experiences, particularly
when we're younger, and how money is treated by our
parents and buy people around us, that can cause us
(37:03):
to conflate income with self worth and with just worth
in general. So I think the first thing we really
need to do is de center money from our life.
When we speak about some of those earlier points around
taking risk and quitting your job. Money is going to
be a powerful factor, but it's also a resource. So
(37:24):
I think my biggest tip here is to in your
twenties spend money on experiences rather than things. You have
time to save, You have time to buy a house,
you have time to make those financial investments that you
want to make. And I think a lot of the media,
and especially around TikTok and even Redder and things like that,
(37:46):
a lot of what we consume from those platforms is
really focused on building wealth and really focused on what investments.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
You should be making.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And I think that if it is that easy, as
a lot of these people claim for it to be,
if you can start small, you can start small a
little bit later. And I really think that you can
save in small ways that don't require you to make
drastic life adjustments in a period of your life where
you should have a little bit more freedom to enjoy
the things around you. So spending money on experiences rather
(38:18):
than things, I think is a good way to accomplish this.
One big thing I think about a lot is that
material items are not the things that you are going
to remember in fifty years, you know, the new added issues,
trending clothing items, fancy bags. Yeah, it might make you
really happy right now, and that's a beautiful thing, and
you should be able to treat yourself when you can,
(38:40):
But I don't think it's worth more than the memories
or experiences that you might be potentially giving up. So
if there's a choice between that, between a nice item
and doing something that is going to let you see
the world differently, or laugh with your friends, or just
be present something that is good for your soul and experience,
I really think that that is what we should prioritize,
(39:02):
you know. I think you don't need trend your designer
items to bring you joy in your twenties. I think
those things are just nice benefits or nice additions to
a more rich and fulfilling life. And I used to
really use the justification that, you know, if I bought
this thing, I would give it to my kids one day,
and really that just caused clutter. You know. It made
(39:25):
me happy for a couple of days, it gave me
that short dopamine hit, and then the buyer's remorse would
set in and suddenly I really wished that I had
more money to do things that I knew would last
me a lifetime, like take trips with my friends, do
the spontaneous dinners, go and have experiences. I also think
that not all money needs to be spent. Something that
(39:46):
my parents always said was that you should have dedicated
money for fun, but you should never spend more than
eighty percent of your earnings, and you should always have
some level of savings. So I think think we get
really overwhelmed when we talk about savings or investing or
putting money aside, because it feels like it's going to
(40:07):
really cost us our lifestyle. But if you just put
twenty five dollars a week into a high interest savings
account bare minimum, that really begins to grow, and it
begins to become really, really fruitful without feeling like it's
impeding on some of some of those assets and money
as a resource that can provide you with the experiences
(40:27):
that you really want to be having. Secondly, we're going
to return to this idea of social comparison because I
think it's a really big psychological factor in how we
approach money in our twenties. Do not buy property or
spend money on rent for a fancy apartment, or use
money to impress people during this decade, or do not
spend money on things just because other people are doing it.
(40:52):
I think that we really conflate money with a lot
of personal things about ourselves. I think that our society,
our culture, and our really idolization of wealth has made
that so it's really hard to escape. But looking at
how someone else is spending and feeling like you need
to do that is a very easy way to find
yourself trapped in a way of spending that perhaps doesn't
(41:15):
actually suit your lifestyle, and that broader visualization of where
you want to be. Using money as a tool for
comparison is such a danger because we start to see
it as the most important thing about ourselves, and we
start to think that if we live a certain lifestyle,
people will think a certain way about us. If we
(41:37):
can say that we're doing things like buying a house
or staying in a really expensive neighborhood, that somehow that's
going to make us happier. I think our time for
those things, and our time for those luxuries and big
investments will come our early twenties, in particular, are perhaps
not the time to be doing that. Part of being
an adult is worrying about money. Financial stay is one
(42:01):
of the biggest exogenists, meaning outside external factors contributing to
things like anxiety and depression, particularly amongst people over the
age of twenty five or thirty. And when we think
about some of the other contextual factors, like potentially you know,
an oncoming recession or a real sense of financial uncertainty,
(42:22):
that can further exacerbate our relationship to money as something
that is finite. I think that what that causes the
bleed on effects or consequences of that is partaking in
a voluntary blindness or ignorance around our finances. Money can
create a lot of stress and fear, and I think
(42:43):
what that can cause us to do is to not
examine how we're spending, why we're spending, when we're spending,
and in response to what And I think ignorance is
definitely bliss, but ignorance is also limiting. You want to
be able to do the things you want to do,
and that requires some pre thought but also some knowledge.
I really went through a time where I would not
(43:04):
even look at my bank balance, and then when I
finally sat down, I was like, Okay, what am I
spending most of my money on?
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Here?
Speaker 1 (43:11):
It was things that actually didn't bring me that much joy.
They just brought me convenience, a lot of takeaway, a
lot of uber eats, and yeah, there's a time and
a place for that. But deciding to be knowledgeable about
my relationship with money and where I was spending and
where I could save was really really valuable for giving
me that bit of a safety net to be able
to do the things I loved. Must also not sacrificing
(43:34):
a lifestyle that I liked, one in which I could
go and have dinners with friends, I could go and
see movies. But it also wasn't going to be exorbitant,
and it wasn't going to completely consume all the money
that I had put aside for that week or for
that month. You know, money is a resource.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
It is not your entire life.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And I also don't think that money is a reason
to pursue a certain career or to make a decision
in our twenties, unless that is a decision that you
are willing to make. You know, it's about choosing your heart,
you know, being broken, being you know, really struggling with
money and maybe not being able to do certain things
(44:16):
because you're prioritizing travel or further education or following your passion.
That is hard, But it's also hard slaving away at
a job you might not love to be able to
afford your first house at twenty two twenty three. It's
about choosing your heart. What are these choices? And of
the all of those other abundant choices that we could make,
(44:36):
is actually most aligned with that vision that I really
wanted you to set out the start, that vision of
what happiness looks like for you in a year of
five years. Really think about where does money sit in
that picture? Is money an important factor?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
All right?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
So I think we're done with part one for now,
covering our bases around career anxiety, risk, career certainty, and
then also some of the financial responsibilities and financial motivators
that we might encounter in this decade. I found this
really valuable, really important actually to reaffirm how I was
(45:15):
approaching my twenties. I think I've been feeling a little
bit stuck at the moment and a little bit all
over the place as to what the future holds and
what kind of life I want to create and whether
I'm doing the right things for that future. But I
think having that sense of yes, I should be taking
a risk, Yes I should be following something like my passion. No,
(45:36):
that is not the end of the line for me. No,
I'm not locked into a future just because I made
a choice at twenty three twenty four.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
That's a really.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Important thing that I think this episode allowed me to
reinforce within myself. So I really hope that you enjoyed
it and that you come back for Part two, where
we're going to be talking about how to create your
dream life, particularly around relationships, love, friendship, and then of
course personal growth. I think that the love factor in
(46:05):
particular is one that we have so many questions about
in our twenties. And I'm not going to pretend I
have all of the answers, but some of the research
and studies that I looked into was really eye opening
for me to be, like, am I approaching this very
foundational emotional experience and connection in a healthy and sustainable
(46:25):
way that aligns with living the life I want to live.
So we are going to return to that in part two.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
wherever you are listening right now, share it with a
friend if you feel cool to do so, and if
you have an episode suggestion, follow us at that psychology podcast.
(46:49):
I love hearing from you. I love hearing what's going
on with your lives, what kind of experiences you want
me to talk about. So I appreciate all the love,
support and feedback that you give me over there, and
I will be back with part two of creating your
dream life in your twenties.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
M
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is great to have
you here back for another episode today. I also want
to formally welcome you to this week's little mini series
where I'm going to be focusing on how to create
your dream life in your twenties. So my kind of
(00:48):
idea behind this segment why I thought that it was
important to talk about today, perhaps something that I hadn't
spoken about before, is that there is so much evidence, advice, pology,
even my personal observations that don't always make it into
one episode altogether. I feel like I have a lot
of different episodes for unique conundrums and unique experiences. But
(01:12):
what I really wanted to do was combine that all
into two episodes where we look at all the different
dimensions of our twenties that I think we experience the
greatest sense of worry and confusion, things like our careers,
our finances, love, friendships, the future and our personal growth,
(01:33):
and really provide a bit of a blueprint or a
guide for what is the best practice, what is the
best thing to do during this decade around these different
ideas and experiences that is not only going to allow
us to really enjoy the freedom of this time, but
also set us up for the future. I think this
(01:55):
decade is so incredibly romanticized, and the stakes feel so
high to kind of get everything right and to set
ourselves up for success whilst also not really missing out
on some of those crucial, fun, care free times, and
I think we all deserved a bit of a holistic
bird's eye view of exactly what kind of balance to
(02:18):
strike and also some reassurance that you are not behind,
there is no need to rush, there is still time,
and also what the future may have in store how
to approach that daunting, sometimes overwhelming confusion with excitement rather
than fear. So this is Part one of the Creating
(02:40):
Your Dream Life mini series where we are going to
cover tips and theories around achieving fulfillment, direction and growth
in our careers and our financial lives. And part two
we're going to cover relationships, friendships, love as well as
our physical and our emotional and crucially our spiritual well being.
(03:04):
So this episode, I really want to get into a
decode all of the kind of mysteries and confusions around
making career and financial choices in your twenties that feel
right and feel satisfying, but also allow us to really
build this really wonderful future that we want without having
the regret and the fear of the what ifs. A
(03:27):
question I get all the time, and that I think,
in fact, I ask myself a lot, is how do
I know that the decisions I'm making right now are
not the same decisions that I'm going to regret in
five or ten years. Because this is our first decade
of adulthood, we often don't have the hindsight to comprehend
(03:49):
just how much our lives can and will change in
the next five to ten years, and they may pan
out in ways that we don't expect. So because we
are all very new to this day and new to
this experience, we feel very boxed in by, I would say,
a series of choices that have been socially imposed on us,
particularly three or four options in particular, do you work,
(04:13):
do you travel? Do you pursue further education or do
you settle down?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
You know?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think that what comes from that is this series
of what if questions, the series of kind of pick
me or make a choice situation.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So do I go to.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
UNI and pursue professional success of being you know, a lawyer,
a doctor, an architect? Or do I go traveling? Do
I spend the next ten years climbing the corporate ladder?
Or do I pursue my passions and my pipe dreams.
Sometimes it feels like every choice we make closes more
doors than it opens. If I'm this type of person,
(04:53):
the type that is eager for financial independence and professional success,
then I have to say goodbye to this other potential
version of myself, that really free spirited traveler with endless
time but also very little money. And I wish that
I could be every possible version of myself. I wish
that I didn't have to choose. It's something that I
(05:14):
hear constantly, and I guess the question that comes from
that is why can't we kind of have it all?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Why can't we be it all?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
I think a big misconception we face during this decade
is that the choices we are making now will be
our final answer. Part of that is this major contradiction
inherent in our twenties that can make things so confusing
but also wonderful. You know, in one year, we are
told that this is the decade of opportunity, where we
(05:43):
are kind of given a few years of free passes
to really take our time and explore, and then in
the other years this little voice telling us that we
are falling behind, that we should have figured it out
by now, that this is where our life foundation is
a established. I talk about this concept quite a bit
on the show, but I think our twenties are a
(06:05):
continuous example of what we call the paradox of choice.
So the paradox of choice is this theory that suggests
when we have an abundance of options, actually what that
requires is more effort. And when we have more options,
we feel less satisfied with our choices compared to when
(06:25):
we have fewer. And when we think about the landscape
of our twenties, something that we are is very much
spoilt for choice, and we might think that that is
more liberating. We might think that that gives us more freedom,
But what a lot of these psychologists are saying is
really that choice actually paralyzes us because we don't know
(06:45):
how to weigh up all of the pros and cons
the costs and benefits of these decisions. So we are
a generation facing the curse of too much choice, and
maybe that is what's contributing to high levels of anxiety
around not making the most of our formative years or
worse yet, I think this fear of making a choice
(07:09):
and it being the wrong one. Something we really need
to acknowledge before we start this episode is that this
decade is not always going to be glamorous and romantic.
I think we constantly think that we should be further along,
that we should have this career of our dreams, or
even an idea of what that dream should be by
(07:30):
a certain age. But when you talk to more and
more people about this, you kind of realize that everyone
is just as confused as the next. And we learn
a lot of what we think our lives should be
like from very unrealistic I would say, narrow hues, from
very highly idealized depictions of what this decade should be
(07:54):
from movies from cinema, and unfortunately a lot of them
are false. So there's two things that I've come to realize.
Number One, we need to throw out any kind of
thinking or prediction of what you think your life should
look like. The vision you have for your future right
now is going to change a million times, and where
(08:16):
you think you'll end up is probably not going to
be where you actually end up.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I would say the.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Chances are highly unlikely. You know, I finished high school
thinking I was going to work in politics. Then I
graduated union, I was a management consultant, and now three
years later, you know, I make a psychology podcast full time.
That wasn't what I had in mind. That was a
completely different idea to what I had even twelve months ago.
(08:43):
But I think it's even better because I let life
surprise me and I didn't tie myself down to a
particular idea of who I needed to be. I let
myself change. I let myself make mistakes, because I think
that's firmly what I think this decade is for. That
is my underlying philosophy throughout this whole idea of creating
your dream life. Allow yourself to make mistakes, allow yourself
(09:06):
to accept change.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I think.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Secondly, no decision or experience is ever a waste of
your time, And you also have the agency to change
your reality.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
At any point.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
It's really never too late to make a life altering decision.
You can be fifty and decide to go back to school.
You can be thirty five and quit your job. You
can be eighty before you really, you know, find your passion,
you start your first book, you meet the love of
your life. You're not a passive actor or a sidekick
in your own life. That's something we really need to remember.
(09:41):
You are the main character. So what's kind of stopping
you from trying on different versions of yourself and seeing
which one fits? You know, what's stopping you from deciding
that one day you know the corporate life isn't for
you, you're quitting your job, or maybe you're doing the reverse.
You can give a million reasons why you cannot do that,
(10:02):
But I think when your happiness is the number one priority,
especially during this decade where I think we're allowed to
be a lot more selfish than other decades, when you're
kind of on this journey of creating your dream life,
happiness is really the core factor in your decision making.
So in this episode, Part one of this episode, we
(10:23):
are going to break down my ten key tips to
getting the most out of your career, your finances, and
your time in your twenties to create your dream life,
set yourself up for success, but also really enjoy this
sacred period of your life. So, without further ado, let's
get into it. The big dilemma I think that we
(10:50):
need to overcome first and foremost when we're working towards
this idea of creating our dream life, is actually understanding.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
What that looks like.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Now, that's a highly individual question, depending on factors like
our values, family, expectations, culture, even the books and movies
that we've been exposed to. That conceptualization is going to
look really different for everyone. You know, For some people,
our twenties are about complete freedom and minimal responsibility, and
(11:21):
for others they're focused on settling down or pursuing love
or your soulmate. In fact, I really think that on
this whole planet, you could never find two people who
are perfectly aligned on what they want from this decade,
because there isn't one correct answer. I think where we
get in trouble is when we compare our idea of
(11:42):
happiness and success as well to someone else's and we
really begin to doubt whether our aspirations are actually good
enough or whether someone else has it more figured out
than us. That right there, I think is a one
way ticket to very deep emotional, spiritual, mental desaturer faction,
because someone else's ambition and motivation for pursuing a certain
(12:06):
path is not going to be aligned with yours. And
I think focusing on someone else's plan, focusing on someone
else's idea of fulfillment, someone else's success, just really detracts
from your own enjoyment of your life because you're constantly
holding up a mirror to someone else's. As the saying goes,
you know, energy flows where attention goes, and if there's
(12:29):
one thing that you need to create your dream life
during this decade, it is to direct all of your
energy into what is going to make you happy, both
in the moment and in the future. So our first
exercise is to determine what kind of decade you want
your twenties to be, noting that this can and I
(12:50):
think definitely will change, and you should really be testing
this idea regularly. But at every stage when you find
yourself perhaps at a crossroads or feeling really stuck, which
we know is a super common experience, what you need
to ask yourself is a what makes you happy b
what makes you fulfilled? Because those are different things, and
(13:12):
see what conditions are necessary to fulfill those two factors.
I say that third factor of what conditions are necessary
as the last one, because I think that this should
enable those first two factors. It's also something that is
most flexible and it shouldn't be a condition or a
factor that limits what you're looking for in your life
(13:35):
or when we start making a plan for the future,
especially during this decade, I think we often set out
to make a bit of a checklist, one that feels
very constrictive and linear. You know, do X to achieve Y, PASCO,
collect certain experiences, achieve certain milestones, and happiness is kind
of guaranteed. And when we put ourselves into a category
(13:59):
where we feel like we need to meet certain conditions
to do something, we also feel that we can't do
everything and that we're closing ourselves off to other possibilities,
which actually creates a lot of paralysis because if we
are feeling like we're forced to make a decision, if
we're feeling like we have to give up opportunities in
(14:20):
order to pursue something in particular, that's going to really
decrease our motivation and our sense of satisfaction with that
when you're with that choice. And I think what's more
accurate is that you can't do everything.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
At once, but you can do everything.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Ten years is a really, really long time, and I
think to put that into perspective, think about everything that
has happened to you since you were ten, or since
you were twelve or fifteen, or how many different chapters
you've lived through since that age you were ten years ago,
how much your ideas about the future changed in that time.
(14:57):
I think in order to confront a lot of that
anxiety about wasting our formative years, we need to look
at our twenties as a series of seasons. So twenty
to twenty two is season one. Maybe we focus on UNI,
we focus on figuring things out. Twenty three to twenty
five season two, we focus on giving our passions, our all,
(15:17):
you know, really focusing on something that is perhaps not
conventional or accepted, but something that makes us happy. Twenty
six to twenty eight, we can travel if we want.
That's another option. Twenty nine to thirty to thirty one,
we can really focus on some level of professional or
career development and viewing it as a series of chapters
(15:38):
rather than just one clump of ten years where you
have to do everything possible. I think that makes us
feel like we can fit.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
It all in.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Instead of creating a timeline or a checklist, a very
constrictive way of looking at your life, I want us
to utilize the ideas around visualization to create a more
realistic depiction of what our future might look like, but
also one that can be flexible. Instead of thinking, this
(16:08):
is what I want to achieve by twenty five or
twenty eight or thirty, whatever age you have in mind,
I want you to instead imagine a random day one
year from now and picture the following things.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Where are you living and in.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Detail, what does your space look like? Where did you
wake up this morning? What's your morning routine? Maybe you
went and saw some friends for lunch. Who are they?
Who are these friends? What do they do? How are
you spending your afternoon? Are you working in a cafe?
Are you working at you know, the job you've always
wanted or taking a train somewhere amazing. Who are you texting?
(16:45):
Who are you talking to? Who are you fantasizing about?
What are the plans that you're working towards what are
you eating for dinner? And then project that same visualization
again for the version of you in five years. Think
about that moment, what is making you happy, what is
your routine looking like, what does the world around you
(17:07):
look like? And what small things from that do you
need to change to make that feeling a reality. The
thing is, I think deep down we already know what
kind of future we want, or at least we know
at least one version of that. The only doubt I
think we have intrinsically is our fear that we may
(17:27):
not achieve it. But then when we picture our future
and ourselves in it, when we use that very powerful
tool of visualization, that's not only a really powerful motivator,
but it's also incredibly affirming, and it makes us look
for a practical pathway to achieving a certain feeling rather
than a quantifiable set of milestones. Now that we have
(17:52):
that dream in mind, I really want to discuss how
we can form our life around that dream, or around
the feeling that we're looking to achieve. So this is
where I really want to discuss my firstly, five key
tips for pushing yourself forward and making the most out
of your career decisions during this decade. I think the
secret to creating your dream life in your twenties is
(18:14):
a combination of both future planning and risk taking, striking
that balance. So firstly, depending on what season you're in,
whether you have a plan or not, you really need
to try as many new things as you can, even
when they feel scary. There's this beautiful quote that I
reflect on a lot. The unlived life is not worth examining.
(18:37):
I think too many of us believe that our twenties
are for thinking about what we want to do and
imagining our future, but actually not doing much doing. That's
not true. I think our twenties are for collecting the
experiences and the stories that will be the bedrock for
our future, rather than kind of falling into what we
(18:57):
call the cycle of an action regret. So in action regret.
We've spoken about this before, but researchers have shown that
doing something, even if it's the wrong thing, taking risks
even if they don't work out, is much less likely
to leave you with regret than doing nothing at all.
I think additionally, our twenties are when we are most
(19:19):
receptive to new experiences and new interests, whilst our our
brains are still developing, so it really is the best
time to expose ourselves to novelty and newness and things
that might challenge our thinking, rather than feeling like we're
stuck as the same version as we were when we
were eighteen or nineteen years old. The thing is, you
haven't really been an adult for all too long, so
(19:41):
it's unlikely that you really know what you like, what
makes you happy. You really haven't had that exposure to
what's out there, and sadly, I think you can't really
figure out what is going to leave you feeling fulfilled
unless you give things a really solid go. And like
I said before, let life truly surprise you. I had
this friend who spent like her whole life thinking that
(20:05):
she was going to be a doctor. She had five
months left of medical school, and someone got her a
random pottery course for her birthday, and within two weeks
she'd quit medical school and was focusing on being an
artist full time. And I know that sounds really drastic,
but this is the time for you to do that,
because you can't really hurt anyone by deciding to make
(20:25):
yourself happier in those moments, and by deciding to pursue
something that might be different. If you are in a
moment of stagnation, you've been doing the same thing for
some time, it's time to switch it up, because I
think you don't want to blink and realize that the
things you did at twenty two are the same stories
you're telling at twenty eight because you haven't given yourself
(20:46):
the space to be uncomfortable and make new experiences. This
really leads me to tip to take as many risks
as possible, even if they're not conventional, because you have
no idea how they might pay off. One thing in
particular I think everyone should be doing in their twenties
is to move to a new city. Pushing yourself into
(21:08):
a new environment is such a catalyst for self growth
and self awareness. Let this be your motivation if you
have been thinking about it, learning to live on your own,
support yourself, and create new connections beyond what you're comfortable in.
For me, that has been such a profound contributor to
(21:30):
my identity, a huge hallmark of my twenties, and I
think my sense of independence, my confidence, even you know,
my overall enjoyment in life has just blossomed, expanded, grown
a hundred times. I can't even fathom how many things
I would have missed out on if I hadn't left
(21:50):
home at seventeen and then again moved to Sydney at
twenty two. It really scares me to think about that,
all these beautiful experiences that I was rewarded with for
taking that even when it felt scary. I just can't
imagine how empty I would feel if I hadn't done that,
and how haunted I would be by the possibility. I
always say this, but I think the easiest thing you
(22:12):
can do is what is most convenient, and sadly, I
think that's normally the path most people take, one of
comfort and convenience where we really have You know, we
never give ourselves a reason to challenge whether our lives
could be better, because we are too scared that we
might make them worse. There's two things I want to
say about that. Firstly, there is really only so much
(22:34):
screwing up that you can do in your twenties, and
there are only a very select few amount of decisions
that are going to ruin your life. Everything is temporary, firstly,
but also everything can be reversed, except for the decisions
that you didn't make. I'm going to say that one
more time. Everything can be reversed except for the decisions
(22:55):
that you didn't make.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
And I'm not.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Asking you to do something fraudulent or d but just
to do things you are scared to do, because I
think living with that existential potential and question of the
what if is going to be a lot more emotionally
painful in the long term than that experience of momentary fear. Secondly,
there's this idea in psychology around the distinction between bounded
(23:19):
and unbounded risk that just kind of furthers the argument
that you can take chances and still pursue those same
goals and still feel secure. Bounded risks are risks that
have limited downside, but unbounded unlimited upside. So these kinds
of risks they might cost you upfront, they might involve
(23:40):
an investment in time or money or resources, but there
is no ceiling, there is no limit to the potential
upsides and reward. So starting a podcast, for example, a
side hustle, a YouTube channel, choosing to go back to
UNI for something you're passionate about, those are all examples
of bounded risks. You invest sometime in content creation or study,
(24:06):
some money in equipment or a membership, but it's not
going to cost you your life, your friendships, your career,
your financial security. It's just going to enhance the features
that are already there. And you know, if it doesn't
take off, if your podcast isn't successful, you have a
bounded loss. You can't lose more than what you invested in,
you know, But if it grows viral, or you find
(24:27):
a highly engaged audience, or you discover this really niche
passion and a demand for your skills, there is no
limit to how far that can go. I'm going to
give you the example I know best, which is in
terms of this show and this podcast that you're listening
to right now. When I started it, yeah there was
potential to be embarrassed, but really the worst that could
(24:48):
have happened was that no one listened. And guess what
if I hadn't started the podcast, no one would be
listening anyways. But theoretically, when you choose something like a
bounded risk, like starting a YouTube channel or a podcast
or a TikTok something like that, theoretically you can reach
anyone with an Internet connection. There is limited cost. And
(25:09):
then also unlimited payoff. You know this is my job now,
that's so crazy to me. This is my calling and
the why is so clear to me. But if I'd
been too scared or uncomfortable to take that risk, none
of that would have happened. So maybe I'm a success story.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Maybe I'm not.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
But you really have no idea what the world will
reward you with when you decide to do things that
most people feel too afraid to do, and you know
it's your twenties. At the end of the day, mistakes
just make for excellent stories, and some people may see
a downside in that, but I think good stories just
make you a more fascinating, multi dimensional human. So why
(25:51):
not do it? And one of the best risks I
think you can take? And also my third tip is
to quit the job you hate. I've spoken about this before,
and to be honest, people weren't too big of a
fan of it. But I really want to lay out
my evidence and reasoning for this if anyone out there
needs convincing. This is not the decade for you to
(26:13):
stay anywhere do anything you don't love.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Out of an obligation.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
You have years of that, years to do that, years
to put yourself through the responsibility of needing to keep
a job. I don't think now is that time when
we're talking about creating our dream life. If you are
someone who is working full time, one third of that
life you are creating will be at work. When we
look at our life in its totality, that is thirty
(26:39):
percent of our time, ninety thousand hours, ninety thousand hours
of your life. I can't even begin to contemplate how
large that number is. Imagine being in the biggest stadium
you've ever been in, and imagine talking to every single
person in that stadium for an hour, row by row,
section by section, seat by seat. That would take an
(27:00):
incredibly long time. And that is the time that you're
investing into a job that you might not love, that
you might not like, that leaves you overworked, miserable, bored, unfulfilled.
And so can you really give yourself a reason other
than money and stability why you should stay And when
you create a hierarchy of what's important to you, does
(27:22):
money really sit above your well being or your happiness
and your joy in life. I'm guessing probably not. And
it goes back to that first item. You need to
try as many new things as you can, because there
could be a job out there for you that you
absolutely adore, that you you know, leaves you feeling so
happy and fulfilled and meaningful. So why don't you deserve
(27:46):
to be there? This is really your only life, and
work is a part of that. It's a part of
that reality. So in ten twenty years, are you going
to be proud of yourself if you stayed somewhere you
weren't happy just because it was easier than the effort
it would take to do something that you loved more.
Quit the job. Trust me, I did it. You have
(28:07):
time to be a corporate drone, you have time to
sell your soul to a boss. But I don't think
that your twenties are that time. That advice might sound
quite militant and intense, maybe a bit Marxist, which I get,
I understand, but I also want to say, if you
love your job, that is absolutely something that you should
hold onto. You are very lucky and I think that
(28:29):
that is a real blessing. Congratulations. But this advice is
for if you have any doubts that your current career
is not bringing you fulfillment. I do think that that
lack of fulfillment. That dissatisfaction is only solidified over time,
so to give you that edge. This really relates to
my next tip, and to be able to transfer to
(28:50):
new jobs, new beginnings, but also to give you the
freedom to transition perhaps between work and time exploring and
trying other things. My fourth tip is to develop a
specific skill, something that is very unique, as almost an
insurance for your future. So things like audio editing, things
(29:10):
like being a nurse, things like copywriting, some kind of coding,
a unique skill, a unique thing that you can put
on your resume that is evergreen, that is always going
to have some kind of commodification. So why is this
valuable and why is it on this list? I think
this is valuable because it gives you the security to
(29:30):
be able to make decisions from a place of longing
and from your heart rather than practicality, knowing that you
have something to fall back onto, whilst also expanding the
avenues and dimensions of your life beyond your career. Whatever
you choose to do that is totally up to you.
But I also think that I cannot sit here and
give advice about creating a beautiful future if we're not
(29:52):
also thinking about what that foundation might look like, and
some of the practicalities and contextual factors around needing money
to live and needing money to explore, and needing money
to take time off work. So I think that made five.
But I'm going to give one extra, and that is
to start writing down your goals and setting up five
(30:13):
achievable goals per year. So one professional goal, one personal goal,
one financial goal, one health goal, and finally what I
call a soulful goal, So that is a goal that
feeds you mentally, psychologically, emotionally. That may not look like
something we would set as a goal from the outside.
(30:34):
It might not look important to others, but it's important
for ourselves and for keeping in touch with our authenticity
and our sense of wonder. Adulthood. If we take it
too seriously, sometimes can suck a lot of the fun
out of our twenties. You know, remember what it was
like when you played like a bunch of instruments and
you played sport with your friends and you were like
building a sticker collection, or you were like making little
(30:57):
songs on your keyboard. That is still important in our twenties.
So I think focusing on something that elevates the small
pleasures and keeps you centered on enjoying life is really important,
you know, maybe pursuing a sport or a yoga course,
or making time to make art, asking yourself like I
want to make a couple of art pieces a year,
(31:18):
and I'm not going to give them twenty one. I'm
just going to keep them to myself. I want to
make sure that I plan at least one beach trip,
or I do a girls trip or a trip on
my own, something that is going to feed your soul
that you prioritize in your life. That is an important
part of the goals that you're setting for the future.
I think those five goals, those five categories give your
(31:41):
life a sense of structure so that you're not kind
of sucked into a Peter Pan complex wanting to be
aimless and young forever. But it also keeps the balance
balance being the keyword of this episode, between focus and freedom. Importantly,
we also have to recognize that these goals they may
and most likely will change, and also you don't need
(32:03):
to achieve them.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
In the next two days or the next two weeks.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
One of the biggest mistakes I think we make in
our twenties is feeling like everything is on an accelerated timeline,
such that the time between an idea and its realization
needs to be as quick as possible. Maturing is really
coming to terms with the fact that good things take
time and adjustment, and plans made in silence, with consistency
(32:31):
and slow, steady action are a lot more structurally sound
than kind of these fleeting desires that we throw everything into.
And I'm not saying don't do those things, but I
think have some idea in mind of where you might
want to be in ten years. I really get that
tendency to rush and feel pressure to be successful and
(32:52):
exceptional at a young age, especially with so much societal
pressure and the idealization of the wonder kin for young success.
But really slow down and take this moment for what
it is. You're never going to get this time back.
That's something I hear time and time again from mentors
or people who are older than me. Plans will take time.
(33:13):
You don't need to rush and get them done right now.
You are completely okay to have your small micro goals
that give you a sense of motivation and give you
a sense of that visualization tactic we were talking about before.
You know, if your goal is to do something huge,
How can you prepare for that over time in a
way that is sustainable, focusing on the little steps you
(33:36):
take and tying them back to the big but also
giving yourself freedom around that to go on trips, to
do things that really spark joy and feel exciting and
feel like the experiences we should be having in our twenties.
I think we've had enough career advice and conversations on
careers so far in this episode, So what I want
(33:57):
to move on to talking about next is finances and money.
Not something we talk about on the show a lot,
but really important. Nonetheless, something extremely valuable to discuss when
we are contemplating this idea of our dream life and
how to set ourselves up for success in our twenties.
So all of that and more after this shortbreak. Money
(34:24):
in our twenties is something that we do not discuss
a lot. I think because our positions on kind of
the well scale between our friends, our colleagues, and then
people like our parents is so nuanced and diverse that
it feels awkward to speak on. You know, we have
friends who are still at UNI, some of.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Them are working.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
We don't really want to put it out there that
we might have less money than they might have more.
There's also this level of discomfort and shame and taboo
around money, which I actually think is not doing us
any favors. It's not empowering to make informed decisions, like
how do I spend my money in my twenties? Is
(35:04):
everyone saving money? Does everyone have money for a house?
Or is everyone as frivolous as me? Is everyone prioritizing experiences.
It's really hard to know because I think not only
do people not talk about it in our personal lives,
but there are very very few discussions about it in
things like our education system or even online in the media.
(35:26):
So let's crack that open today. Let's really examine maybe
how you should be spending your money in your twenties.
I'm going to make a really big caveat here. You
should be spending your money how you want to spend it.
I think financial responsibility and literacy is something that we
all claim in our own time. And I also think
this is just my opinion and my advice for how
(35:49):
I choose to spend my money and how I'm trying
to set myself up for a success. I also think
this is a psychology podcast, and we cannot discuss our
opinions and perspectives and feelings towards money without thinking about
where that came from. I think whilst we should save
when and where we can when possible, we also need
(36:09):
to reframe money as a resource and a tool rather
than as a source of joy. But some of us
have had different childhood perspectives on that, and different influential
experiences around money that have influenced how we treat it
in our twenties. For example, you know, if you never
really had much, money is really synonymous to you with security,
(36:31):
so you might hang on to it and feel a
lot worse or a lot more negative around spending money
on things that might bring you joy, or you might
go the opposite way.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
If you've never had much.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Money, you might now not really know how to manage
this as a resource and use it to pursue luxury
and to give you the things that you never had.
I also think there are a lot of experiences, particularly
when we're younger, and how money is treated by our
parents and buy people around us, that can cause us
(37:03):
to conflate income with self worth and with just worth
in general. So I think the first thing we really
need to do is de center money from our life.
When we speak about some of those earlier points around
taking risk and quitting your job. Money is going to
be a powerful factor, but it's also a resource. So
(37:24):
I think my biggest tip here is to in your
twenties spend money on experiences rather than things. You have
time to save, You have time to buy a house,
you have time to make those financial investments that you
want to make. And I think a lot of the media,
and especially around TikTok and even Redder and things like that,
(37:46):
a lot of what we consume from those platforms is
really focused on building wealth and really focused on what investments.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
You should be making.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And I think that if it is that easy, as
a lot of these people claim for it to be,
if you can start small, you can start small a
little bit later. And I really think that you can
save in small ways that don't require you to make
drastic life adjustments in a period of your life where
you should have a little bit more freedom to enjoy
the things around you. So spending money on experiences rather
(38:18):
than things, I think is a good way to accomplish this.
One big thing I think about a lot is that
material items are not the things that you are going
to remember in fifty years, you know, the new added issues,
trending clothing items, fancy bags. Yeah, it might make you
really happy right now, and that's a beautiful thing, and
you should be able to treat yourself when you can,
(38:40):
But I don't think it's worth more than the memories
or experiences that you might be potentially giving up. So
if there's a choice between that, between a nice item
and doing something that is going to let you see
the world differently, or laugh with your friends, or just
be present something that is good for your soul and experience,
I really think that that is what we should prioritize,
(39:02):
you know. I think you don't need trend your designer
items to bring you joy in your twenties. I think
those things are just nice benefits or nice additions to
a more rich and fulfilling life. And I used to
really use the justification that, you know, if I bought
this thing, I would give it to my kids one day,
and really that just caused clutter. You know. It made
(39:25):
me happy for a couple of days, it gave me
that short dopamine hit, and then the buyer's remorse would
set in and suddenly I really wished that I had
more money to do things that I knew would last
me a lifetime, like take trips with my friends, do
the spontaneous dinners, go and have experiences. I also think
that not all money needs to be spent. Something that
(39:46):
my parents always said was that you should have dedicated
money for fun, but you should never spend more than
eighty percent of your earnings, and you should always have
some level of savings. So I think think we get
really overwhelmed when we talk about savings or investing or
putting money aside, because it feels like it's going to
(40:07):
really cost us our lifestyle. But if you just put
twenty five dollars a week into a high interest savings
account bare minimum, that really begins to grow, and it
begins to become really, really fruitful without feeling like it's
impeding on some of some of those assets and money
as a resource that can provide you with the experiences
(40:27):
that you really want to be having. Secondly, we're going
to return to this idea of social comparison because I
think it's a really big psychological factor in how we
approach money in our twenties. Do not buy property or
spend money on rent for a fancy apartment, or use
money to impress people during this decade, or do not
spend money on things just because other people are doing it.
(40:52):
I think that we really conflate money with a lot
of personal things about ourselves. I think that our society,
our culture, and our really idolization of wealth has made
that so it's really hard to escape. But looking at
how someone else is spending and feeling like you need
to do that is a very easy way to find
yourself trapped in a way of spending that perhaps doesn't
(41:15):
actually suit your lifestyle, and that broader visualization of where
you want to be. Using money as a tool for
comparison is such a danger because we start to see
it as the most important thing about ourselves, and we
start to think that if we live a certain lifestyle,
people will think a certain way about us. If we
(41:37):
can say that we're doing things like buying a house
or staying in a really expensive neighborhood, that somehow that's
going to make us happier. I think our time for
those things, and our time for those luxuries and big
investments will come our early twenties, in particular, are perhaps
not the time to be doing that. Part of being
an adult is worrying about money. Financial stay is one
(42:01):
of the biggest exogenists, meaning outside external factors contributing to
things like anxiety and depression, particularly amongst people over the
age of twenty five or thirty. And when we think
about some of the other contextual factors, like potentially you know,
an oncoming recession or a real sense of financial uncertainty,
(42:22):
that can further exacerbate our relationship to money as something
that is finite. I think that what that causes the
bleed on effects or consequences of that is partaking in
a voluntary blindness or ignorance around our finances. Money can
create a lot of stress and fear, and I think
(42:43):
what that can cause us to do is to not
examine how we're spending, why we're spending, when we're spending,
and in response to what And I think ignorance is
definitely bliss, but ignorance is also limiting. You want to
be able to do the things you want to do,
and that requires some pre thought but also some knowledge.
I really went through a time where I would not
(43:04):
even look at my bank balance, and then when I
finally sat down, I was like, Okay, what am I
spending most of my money on?
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Here?
Speaker 1 (43:11):
It was things that actually didn't bring me that much joy.
They just brought me convenience, a lot of takeaway, a
lot of uber eats, and yeah, there's a time and
a place for that. But deciding to be knowledgeable about
my relationship with money and where I was spending and
where I could save was really really valuable for giving
me that bit of a safety net to be able
to do the things I loved. Must also not sacrificing
(43:34):
a lifestyle that I liked, one in which I could
go and have dinners with friends, I could go and
see movies. But it also wasn't going to be exorbitant,
and it wasn't going to completely consume all the money
that I had put aside for that week or for
that month. You know, money is a resource.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
It is not your entire life.
Speaker 1 (43:55):
And I also don't think that money is a reason
to pursue a certain career or to make a decision
in our twenties, unless that is a decision that you
are willing to make. You know, it's about choosing your heart,
you know, being broken, being you know, really struggling with
money and maybe not being able to do certain things
(44:16):
because you're prioritizing travel or further education or following your passion.
That is hard, But it's also hard slaving away at
a job you might not love to be able to
afford your first house at twenty two twenty three. It's
about choosing your heart. What are these choices? And of
the all of those other abundant choices that we could make,
(44:36):
is actually most aligned with that vision that I really
wanted you to set out the start, that vision of
what happiness looks like for you in a year of
five years. Really think about where does money sit in
that picture? Is money an important factor?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
All right?
Speaker 1 (44:53):
So I think we're done with part one for now,
covering our bases around career anxiety, risk, career certainty, and
then also some of the financial responsibilities and financial motivators
that we might encounter in this decade. I found this
really valuable, really important actually to reaffirm how I was
(45:15):
approaching my twenties. I think I've been feeling a little
bit stuck at the moment and a little bit all
over the place as to what the future holds and
what kind of life I want to create and whether
I'm doing the right things for that future. But I
think having that sense of yes, I should be taking
a risk, Yes I should be following something like my passion. No,
(45:36):
that is not the end of the line for me. No,
I'm not locked into a future just because I made
a choice at twenty three twenty four.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
That's a really.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Important thing that I think this episode allowed me to
reinforce within myself. So I really hope that you enjoyed
it and that you come back for Part two, where
we're going to be talking about how to create your
dream life, particularly around relationships, love, friendship, and then of
course personal growth. I think that the love factor in
(46:05):
particular is one that we have so many questions about
in our twenties. And I'm not going to pretend I
have all of the answers, but some of the research
and studies that I looked into was really eye opening
for me to be, like, am I approaching this very
foundational emotional experience and connection in a healthy and sustainable
(46:25):
way that aligns with living the life I want to live.
So we are going to return to that in part two.
As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
wherever you are listening right now, share it with a
friend if you feel cool to do so, and if
you have an episode suggestion, follow us at that psychology podcast.
(46:49):
I love hearing from you. I love hearing what's going
on with your lives, what kind of experiences you want
me to talk about. So I appreciate all the love,
support and feedback that you give me over there, and
I will be back with part two of creating your
dream life in your twenties.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
M
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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